Vai's audition for Zappa... wow

[Robert]

Steve Vai talks about auditioning for Frank Zappa. Wow, I bet Vai must have been sweating when Frank says to play it in 7/8 reggae style... wow!

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[jpfeifer]

Holy crap, that must have been some audition.

The only other Frank Zappa story I'd heard was from this book I bought by Tommy Tedesco on studio guitar playing. In the book, Tommy Tedesco mentioned that he got a call to do a session for Frank Zappa. Having heard about his reputation ahead of time, he decided to show up to the recording session dressed in an Indian costume, just to be silly. He said that Frank did'nt laugh or anything, but handed him all of the charts for the session, which were the most difficult stuff he'd ever been asked to sight read in his whole career. (Tommy Tedesco had the reputation for being able to sight read anything) He felt very silly sitting there in his Indian costume, sweating bullets, trying to sight read all of this very difficult stuff, and he barely got through the gig. It was a funny story.

-- Jim